In this normally pleasant town of 10,000 residents a stone's throw from the mysterious Stonehenge monument, the new reality is sinking in: Novichok, again.
A British police community support officer guards a cordon outside the Queen Elizabeth Gardens park in Salisbury, England, Thursday, July 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Four months had passed since the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter, and the collective nightmare seemed to be fading. No longer were forensics experts in oversize hazmat suits combing the area for an invisible killer developed by the Soviet Union in Cold War times.
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In this normally pleasant town of 10,000 residents a stone's throw from the mysterious Stonehenge monument, the new reality is sinking in: Novichok, again.
Four months had passed since the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter, and the collective nightmare seemed to be fading. No longer were forensics experts in oversize hazmat suits combing the area for an invisible killer developed by the Soviet Union in Cold War times.
She said it's difficult to feel safe after what happened to Sturgess, 44, and 45-year-old Charlie Rowley. Both became violently ill within hours of each other on Saturday. At first, authorities believed they had taken some bad heroin or crack cocaine, but it turned out to be Novichok.
Britain has accused Russia of being behind the attack on the Skripals, which the Kremlin vehemently denies. British Home Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Thursday that it is now time for Russia to explain "exactly what has gone on."
"We don't know what's going on. First, they said it was the Russians. Now this is completely separate. Originally, we all thought it was the Russians, now it doesn't seem quite right," he said, noting that Sturgess and Rowley have no connection to Russia.
The last few days have been traumatic for some residents, particularly those who live close to areas that were shut down to the public because of possible contamination.
"The Novichok gel that was smeared on the handle of the Skripals' house was presumably transported in some device or syringe," he said. "I think the working assumption now is that device or that syringe is what has appeared, and the residue caused these two people to become ill."
Eager tourists, drawn by an unusually long spell of glorious summer weather, were back at Stonehenge, and England's World Cup team was surging, buoying spirits. Then a local couple with no obvious connection to Russia or to espionage fell desperately ill and the government said Novichok was to blame.
Some are embracing the "keep calm and carry on" ethos that helped England through two world wars, but others were frightened by the seemingly random poisoning of two innocents who now lie critically ill in a local hospital.
"It's shocking, and it's scary," said Elaine Read, a worker at The Kings Arms pub who used to occasionally share a pint with Dawn Sturgess, one of the victims. "Nobody expected it to happen again. Everyone was saying it was Russia, but now it's just two ... local people. They're just like us."
Police cordon tape hangs surrounding the Queen Elizabeth Gardens park in Salisbury, England, Thursday, July 5, 2018. British officials were seeking clues Thursday in the rush to understand how two Britons were exposed to the military-grade nerve agent Novichok. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
She said it's difficult to feel safe after what happened to Sturgess, 44, and 45-year-old Charlie Rowley. Both became violently ill within hours of each other on Saturday. At first, authorities believed they had taken some bad heroin or crack cocaine, but it turned out to be Novichok.
"You don't know where it is, that's the trouble," Read said of the elusive nerve agent. "You don't know how Dawn and Charlie got it, how it crossed their paths."
The bizarre case, combining elements of a murder mystery and a spy thriller, is stoking international tensions ahead of next week's NATO summit, which will deal in part with worsening relations between Russia and the West.
Britain's interior minister demanded Thursday that Russia explain how two people were inadvertently poisoned with the same military-grade nerve agent used to attack ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the nearby town of Salisbury in March.
A police officer guards metal fencing erected on the end of Rollestone Street, the location of the John Baker House for homeless people in Salisbury, England, Thursday, July 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
Britain has accused Russia of being behind the attack on the Skripals, which the Kremlin vehemently denies. British Home Secretary Sajid Javid told Parliament on Thursday that it is now time for Russia to explain "exactly what has gone on."
"It is completely unacceptable for our people to be either deliberate or accidental targets, or for our streets, our parks, our towns to be dumping grounds for poison," Javid said.
In Amesbury, residents were advised to wash their clothes and take other precautions if they were at the locations believed to have been frequented by the latest victims.
Some were staying inside to avoid any risk of contamination, but most were going about their business. A few parts of town remained cordoned off by police, including the Baptist Church, but activity in the easygoing town center continued unabated.
"I'm not so easily scared, but there has to be more to it," said Justin Pritchard, enjoying a beer with a friend.
Members of the media stand outside a police cordon stopping people seeing a property shielded from view, around to the left out the picture, that police have been guarding in Amesbury, England, Thursday, July 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
"We don't know what's going on. First, they said it was the Russians. Now this is completely separate. Originally, we all thought it was the Russians, now it doesn't seem quite right," he said, noting that Sturgess and Rowley have no connection to Russia.
British officials said Thursday they believe the latest victims were not deliberately targeted but came into contact with the Novichok used in the Skripal poisoing. Police said the couple was exposed to the nerve agent after handling a contaminated item, but provided no details.
That isn't convincing to Rick Bird, 65, a retired British army veteran who was trained in the handling of nerve agents during his military career. He said he never dreamed nerve agents would be deployed in Britain.
"The latest case seems to be an odd one," Bird said. "The first one in Salisbury, we thought we were all over it. This came totally out of the blue. It's the fear factor, for everybody."
A British police officer guards a cordon which was extended overnight to include the Lush House car park adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Gardens park in Salisbury, England, Thursday, July 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
The last few days have been traumatic for some residents, particularly those who live close to areas that were shut down to the public because of possible contamination.
Alex Brittany, 29, said he woke up to find the Baptist Church near his home being cordoned off. The experience left him shaky.
"It is quite frightening," he said. "What scared me this time was that the cordons were near where I live. You expect big attacks in London, Manchester. But Amesbury? Salisbury? Wow. Really?"
Experts say just a few milligrams of the odorless Novichok liquid — the weight of a snowflake — is enough to kill a person within minutes. And finding it is the problem.
Chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said the latest victims were likely collateral damage from the Skripal attack.
A woman looks through a gap in screens erected in Rollestone Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, where counter-terrorism police are investigating after a couple were left in a critical condition when they were exposed to the nerve agent Novichok. Photo credit should read: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
"The Novichok gel that was smeared on the handle of the Skripals' house was presumably transported in some device or syringe," he said. "I think the working assumption now is that device or that syringe is what has appeared, and the residue caused these two people to become ill."
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia is concerned about the case but had nothing to do with either poisoning.
"Russia has categorically denied and continues to categorically deny the possibility of any kind of involvement with what was happening there," Peskov told reporters Thursday.
Andrea Sella, professor of inorganic chemistry at University College London, said Novichok nerve agents "are designed to be quite persistent — they hang around in the environment, neither evaporating nor decomposing quickly.
Police cordon tape hangs tied round trees within the Queen Elizabeth Gardens park in Salisbury, England, Thursday, July 5, 2018. British officials are seeking clues Thursday in the rush to understand how two Britons were exposed to the military-grade nerve agent Novichok. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
"That means that if a container or a surface was contaminated with this material, it would remain a danger for a long time. And it will be vital to trace the movements of this couple to identify where they might have come into contact with the source," he said.
"So, while the public at large are at very low risk from this material, until the source is found there is a remote chance that someone else might come into contact with it," Sella said.
LONDON (AP) — Britain's governing Conservative Party suffered heavy losses in local election results Friday, further cementing expectations that the Labour Party will return to power after 14 years in a U.K. general election that will take place in the coming months.
Labour won control of councils in England that the party hasn’t held for decades, and was successful in a special election for a seat in Parliament.
If those results are repeated in the general election, it would lead to one of the Conservatives' biggest-ever defeats.
Though the results overall, admittedly on a low turnout, make for grim reading for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he was able to breathe a sigh of relief when the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley in the northeast of England was reelected, albeit with a depressed share of the vote. The victory of Ben Houchen, who ran a very personal campaign, may be enough to cushion Sunak from any revolt by Conservative lawmakers.
For Labour leader Keir Starmer, it's generally been a stellar set of results, though in some areas with large Muslim populations, such as Blackburn and Oldham in northwest England, the party's candidates appear to have suffered as a result of the leadership's strongly pro-Israel stance in the war in Gaza.
Perhaps most important in the context of the general election, which has to take place by January but could come next month, Labour won back the parliamentary seat of Blackpool South in the northwest of England. The seat had gone Conservative in the last general election in 2019, when then Prime Minister Boris Johnson made big inroads in Brexit-supporting parts of the country.
In the contest, triggered by the resignation of a Conservative lawmaker following a lobbying scandal, Labour’s Chris Webb secured 10,825 votes, against the second-placed Conservative opponent's 3,218. The swing from Conservative to Labour, at 26%, was one of the biggest since World War II — more than enough to see the party return to power for the first time since it was ejected in 2010.
Starmer went to Blackpool, a coastal resort town, to congratulate Webb and urged Sunak to call a general election. Sunak has the power to decide on the date, and has indicated that it will be in the second half of 2024.
“This was directly to Rishi Sunak to say we are fed up with your decline, your chaos and your division and we want change," Starmer said.
Thursday’s elections in large parts of England were important in themselves, with voters deciding on who runs many aspects of their daily lives, such as garbage collection, road maintenance and local crime prevention, in the coming years. But with a national election looming, they are being viewed through a national prism.
John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, said that the Conservatives are losing around half of the seats they are defending.
“We are probably looking at certainly one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years,” he told BBC radio.
By late evening Friday, with more than half of the 2,661 seats up for grabs counted, the Conservatives were down by more than 410 while Labour was up by nearly 170. Other parties, such as the centrist Liberal Democrats and the Green Party also made gains. Reform U.K., which is trying to usurp the Conservatives from the right, also had some successes, notably in Blackpool South, where it was less than 200 votes from grabbing second place.
Labour won in areas that voted for Britain's departure from the European Union in 2016 and where it had been crushed by Brexit-backer Johnson, such as Hartlepool in the northeast of England, and Thurrock in southeast England. It also seized control of Rushmoor, a leafy and military-heavy council in the south of England where it had never won.
One bright spot for Sunak was the result in Tees Valley, which prior to Brexit had been a traditional Labour stronghold.
Sunak struck a defiant note in Teesside as he congratulated Houchen, whose share was down nearly 20 percentage points from 2021 to 54%, while admitting “disappointing” results elsewhere.
“I’ve got a message for the Labour Party too, because they know that they have to win here in order to win a general election, they know that," he said. "They assumed that Tees Valley would stroll back to them, but it didn’t.”
Sunak will be hoping Andy Street will remain mayor of the West Midlands when that result is announced on Saturday. Labour's Sadiq Khan is expected to remain London's mayor, though there are some concerns being voiced that a low turnout may see him lose to Conservative opponent Susan Hall.
Sunak became prime minister in October 2022 after the short-lived tenure of his predecessor, Liz Truss, who left office after 49 days following a budget of unfunded tax cuts that roiled financial markets and sent borrowing costs for homeowners surging.
Her chaotic — and traumatic — leadership compounded the Conservatives' difficulties following the circus surrounding her predecessor Johnson, who was forced to quit after being adjudged to have lied to Parliament over coronavirus lockdown breaches at his offices in Downing Street.
Nothing Sunak has tried to do has shifted the political dial, with Labour consistently 20 percentage points ahead in opinion polls. Whether anyone else can do better than Sunak is a question that may occupy the minds of nervous Conservative lawmakers in Parliament heading into the weekend.
Britain's Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, left, is congratulated by a local supporter in Winchester, England, following the results in local government elections, Friday May 3, 2024. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)
Britain's Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, center, and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, celebrate with David Skaith at Northallerton Town Football Club, North Yorkshire, after winning the York and North Yorkshire mayoral election, Friday May 3, 2024. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)
Conservative party candidate Lord Ben Houchen, left, with Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak following his re-election as Tees Valley Mayor in Teesside, England, Friday May 3, 2024. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak presents an award to a member of the Parachute Regiment as he visits the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looks on as he inspects the Passing Out Parade of the Parachute Regiment recruits as he visits the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks as he takes part in broadcasting a clip during his visit to the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak smiles as he inspects the Passing Out Parade of the Parachute Regiment recruits during his visit to the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks as he takes part in broadcasting a clip during his visit to the Helles Barracks at the Catterick Garrison, a military base in North Yorkshire, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Molly Darlington/Pool photo via AP)
A woman holds an umbrella as she walks on Westminster Bridge over the River Thames with the clock face of Queen Elizabeth Tower in the background in London, Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. The Queen Elizabeth Tower holds the bell known as Big Ben. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Tourists on a cycle tour in wet weather plastic macs, cycle past the Houses of Parliament, in London Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A general view of the Houses of Parliament from across the River Thames in London, Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A woman holds an umbrella as she walks along the banks of the River Thames opposite the Houses of Parliament in London, Friday, May 3, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Newly elected British Labour MP Chris Webb, right, with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer celebrating at Blackpool Cricket Club, England, Friday May 3, 2024 after being declared winner in the Blackpool South by-election. The by-election was triggered after the resignation of Scott Benton. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Labour candidate Chris Webb celebrates after winning the Blackpool South by-election following the count at Blackpool Sports Centre in Blackpool, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Labour candidate Chris Webb celebrates after winning the Blackpool South by-election following the count at Blackpool Sports Centre in Blackpool, Britain, Friday, May 3, 2024. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
FILE - A woman leaves a polling station after voting in London, Thursday, May 2, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
Counting begins at the Blackpool South by-election at Blackpool Sports Centre in Blackpool, England, Thursday, May 2, 2024. The by-election was triggered after the resignation of Scott Benton. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
FILE - A woman pushes a buggy as she arrives to vote at a polling station in London, Thursday, May 2, 2024. Britain's governing Conservative Party is suffering heavy losses as local election results pour in Friday, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of a U.K. general election in which the main opposition Labour Party appears increasingly likely to return to power after 14 years. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
